Dark Divinations Excerpt and NEWS!
Greetings Rock 'n' Rollers! I cannot tell you all how much I've enjoyed hanging out with HorrorAddicts.net and the esteemed authors in the Dark Divinations Anthology. We had a watch party where we all read from our books, we had a Facebook party, and there were even Chilling Chats posted on the HorrorAddicts.net site. I hope you had a chance to check out the book and I'd love to hear some of your favorite moments! I'm still reading all the stories (end of the school year, kill me now) and I totally get chills!
Here's an excerpt from my story "Breaking Bread." Thanks again for joining us!
HorrorAddicts.net Press Presents:
Dark Divinations edited by Naching T. Kassa
Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/ilQ-BfW6BRs
It’s the height of Queen Victoria’s rule. Fog swirls in the gas-lit streets, while in the parlor, hands are linked. Pale and expectant faces gaze upon a woman, her eyes closed and shoulders slumped. The medium speaks, her tone hollow and inhuman. The séance has begun.
Can the reading of tea leaves influence the future? Can dreams keep a soldier from death in the Crimea? Can a pocket watch foretell a deadly family curse? From entrail reading and fortune-telling machines to prophetic spiders and voodoo spells, sometimes the future is better left unknown.
Choose your fate.
Choose your DARK DIVINATION.
Thanks to Kilby Blades for the super cool graphics!
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An excerpt from Dark Divinations
Breaking Bread
R. L. Merrill
San Lorenzo, California, 1890
Fidelia Meek ushered Eliza Roberts, her neighbor and dear friend, into the parlor of her San Lorenzo mansion and sat in a wingback chair. The young woman sat in the chair opposite her and wrung her gloved hands.
“Tell me again, dear, what is troubling you?” Fidelia asked.
“I was told you might help me with a certain…domestic affair. My husband…he’s been traveling a lot, and when he returns…”
Fidelia’s maid, Moira, served them both Earl Grey tea from a set of the finest china.
“I think I understand.” Fidelia stirred the liquid for several moments before she spoke again. “Men who travel tend to wander.” She took a sip and watched the woman, over the top of her cup.
Fidelia had been in mourning since William passed away nearly a year before and therefore didn’t get out much.
“Am I borrowing trouble?” Eliza asked.
Fidelia finished her tea and glanced into the bottom of her cup with a smile.
“Picture in your mind exactly what you would like to know,” she said without looking up. “Then consider whether you really want to know such a thing. For if you’d rather not know, we should finish our tea and move on to more mundane topics.”
Eliza sat quietly with her teacup cradled in her hands. Her drab blue skirts matched her eyes, which were wet with unshed tears. Her hair, while neatly styled, was a dull blonde. She gazed out the window of the Meek Mansion onto the lush grounds. Fidelia wondered if her guest would ever find peace again.
“I need to know the truth,” Eliza whispered, her chin trembling. “I fear he’s been unfaithful. I won’t allow him to touch me again if—”
“Set down your cup, dear. Let me have a look.”
Eliza frowned but did as Fidelia asked.
Fidelia leaned forward and tilted her head to the side as she gazed at the bits of tea leaves in the bottom of the cup, her only tell a twitch in her left eyebrow. She hoped Eliza had not noticed, for what she saw was bleak.
“What is it?” Eliza asked, her eyes darting between Fidelia and the cup. “Please, Mrs. Meek.”
Fidelia leaned forward and placed her hand over Eliza’s gloved ones.
“Would you be opposed to getting your hands a bit soiled?”
Before Eliza could answer, Fidelia rang the bell for Moira. The woman entered the room with the gait of someone twice her size who’d been kicked by an ass. Her simple black dress was the only neat aspect of her appearance. Her graying hair most likely started off the day pulled back in a tidy bun, but now hung down one side. The strands that had broken free made a wild halo around her ruddy cheeks. She’d been pretty once and still carried herself as a woman who knew her own beauty. Her hands, however, had been brutalized by time and were twisted and gnarled like those of a ninety-year-old man.
“Moira, dear? Mrs. Roberts needs our assistance in the kitchen. We have barley, don’t we?”
“Aye, ma’am,” Moira said with a touch of an Irish lilt. Her eyes flared and one corner of her lips turned up. “Barley is plentiful. We have all the necessary ingredients for bread, if that is what ye’ be wishin’ for.” Moira brushed her hands off on her apron. “Mrs. Roberts, care to follow me to the kitchen?”
“Yes, trust, me dear,” Fidelia said as she stood tall and straightened her skirts. She took Eliza’s hand and tucked it into the crook of her arm. “I have just the thing to help in this situation. Call it a simple test, a measure of his worth, his honesty. If he is truly a man who respects the vows he’s taken, no harm shall come to him. If he’s not, well, he won’t exactly be harmed. Perhaps a simple bout of temporary discomfort will make him rethink his ways.”
“Do you believe, Mrs. Meek, that my husband is capable of redemption?” Eliza’s youthful trust was evident in her hopeful gaze. Fidelia pushed the door open to the kitchen and gestured for Eliza to step inside.
“If human beings were not capable of redemption, what then would the point be?”
To read more, go to: Amazon.com or order the special edition, signed copy with hand-painted tarot cards at HorrorAddicts.net
COMING SOON... News on the release of Love is All Volume 3 as well as Gator Me Twice: A Shifted/Magic and Mayhem Universe Story! June's going to be super hot, so let's play!
Stay Tuned for more Rock 'n' Romance...
